Britain | The Lib Dems

Could Britain’s Liberal Democrats matter again?

The party has high hopes for the next election

Sir Ed Davey, during the Liberal Democrat conference of 2023
Image: Getty Images
|Bournemouth

LIFE IS HARD when you are merely Britain’s fourth-biggest political party. Third place—which the Liberal Democrats held until 2015—at least guarantees some exposure: regular slots at Prime Minister’s Questions and on the airwaves. Fourth, stuck behind even the Scottish National Party, means obscurity. “Calls from the BBC” dry up, laments Sarah Olney, whom even political nerds struggle to name as the party’s finance spokesperson. Half of Britons have never heard of its leader, Sir Ed Davey.

This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Ed who?”

From the September 30th 2023 edition

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